Yesterday, Farm Credibly led a workshop for the current cohort of Branson Centre entreprenurs.
There are some amazing businesses out there and sometimes it's just great to meet and learn about the work of other startups in the Caribbean. For example, Jonathan from Vetiver TT Ecological Engineering Solutions Ltd. in Trinidad and Tobago utilizes vetiver grass as "a bioengineering tool to help with slope stabilization, erosion control, soil and water conservation, and infrastructure protection – think natural retaining walls that cost 20-30% the price of rock, steel and concrete!"
(image from https://bransoncentre.co)
Impact Management
Measuring and communicating our impact can be challenging. In the workshop we focused on methodologies for impact management vs. just monitoring business activity. It is important to understand the imporance of data vizualization and storyltelling, but also understand the costs of measurement. Sometimes we have to find creative ways to offset operational bloat by leveraging a variety of data sources including the work of other stakeholders.
We looked at some of our competitive advantages and disadvantages in the Caribbean as well what a social return on investment(SROI) means. The following description comes from this article on proving impact.
According to The New Economics Foundation, SROI “captures social value by translating outcomes into financial values.” SROI has been most frequently used in Europe, where it comes from the financial sector. ROI (Return on Investment), a performance measure used by investors, calculates “the rate of revenues received for every dollar invested in an item or activity.”
The following are a few useful URLs that were shared: